Barker: Late leveller was deserved

14 November 2016

mkdons.com

Richie Barker felt MK Dons deserved their late equaliser in Saturday’s Sky Bet League One clash with Walsall – and possibly even more!

Dean Bowditch’s 90th-minute finish cancelled out a first-half header from Scott Laird to secure the Dons a point at Stadium MK but on another they may have walked away with all three after having several chances denied in stoppage-time.

In the end, the men from MK1 had to settle for a draw – the least they deserved for staying in the contest and a decent second-half performance, according to the caretaker boss.

“Whenever you’re just 1-0 down you’re always in with a chance,” Barker told MK Dons PlayerHD after the game. “We say to them all the time about the importance of staying in the game and we did that – at the end we probably could have nicked it.

“We still continued to play in the way this Football Club does but, at times towards the end, it was a matter of try and make them make a mistake.

“You have to pick up points in all different ways during the season, particularly when you’re at the wrong end of the table.

“With another four minutes, who knows, we might have nicked it but unfortunately those are the sorts of things that are happening here at the moment.”

“They were getting nervous after the goal and with a little bit of luck something might have fallen for us in stoppage-time. Fair play to them, they broke up the play towards the end – I thought there could have been at least 10 minutes of injury time and we ended up with six.